In what might be a first, Swiss International Air Lines commonly known as SWISS, has unveiled its special ‘SWISS Wanderlust’ livery, which will be featured on its first Airbus A350-900.
What’s most interesting about this launch is that they have partnered with software developer iniBuilds to preview the aircraft in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and 2024, rather than showing a generic render or waiting for the real aircraft’s delivery.
The special livery will be applied to its first A350, and was designed to be “playful, creative and story-packed homage to Switzerland that blends imposing structures with further famous landmarks and motifs of traditional arts and sports events.
“Each of its illustrations captures a facet of SWISS’s home country to tell the story of its places, its people and their culture. And its ‘Wanderlust’ name communicates our yearning to travel, discover and explore the wider world.”
Designed by Swiss artist Frédéric Siegel, the Wanderlust livery will feature a number of motifs depicting both traditional and the modern art across various Swiss cities. There are nine motifs, including the country’s financial capital Zurich, Wengen’s ski slopes, Montreux – home of the Freddie Mercury statue and Basel – home of the Art Basel show.
There are a few other iconic illustrations such as drawings of an alpine marmot, the apple shot through by Wilhelm Tell, Helvetia, and a treasure chest representing the online Swiss-wide treasure hunt game.
The special livery will be featured on the carrier’s first Airbus A350-900 registered HB-IFA. SWISS is expected to take on 10 of these units through a Lufthansa order, which be used to replace their aging Airbus A340-300 fleet and add additional capacity.
So far there are two known units in production, with the second set to be registered as HB-IFB.
You can take an augmented reality tour of the new livery via their treasure hunt website. If you own the 3rd party iniBuilds Airbus A350 aircraft for Microsoft Flight Simulator, you can download both the special (-IFA) and standard (-IFB) liveries from the iniManager app for free.
This is a very interesting and innovative way to launch a new livery. In a world where there are cameras everywhere, and where secrets can’t be kept, this might be SWISS’ way of getting a head start on the launch rather than allowing it to be unveiled via low quality leaks.
With over 15 million orders of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 alone, it’s a good avenue for some free publicity. While iniBuilds has not released product sales for its A350 line, it was one of the most anticipated releases in 2025 (so far), and I’m sure many flight simmers will want to try the new livery before it is publicly unveiled in real life.
